Happy New Year! Can you believe 2006 is already well under way? Right now, my expectations are so high, I believe I can fly. Despite occasional disappointments and failures, 2005 was a pretty good year. But 2006 is going to be amazing — far greater than last year. Don’t you feel the same way?

Now, I am the most positive, optimistic person I know. Give me two negative situations and I’ll put them together and make a positive one. So why do I feel guilty and dissatisfied at the things I didn’t get done or didn’t do properly last year?

Please understand, 2005 was not just a pretty good year. It was a fantastic year. Almost everything improved. New, attractive packaging for the Born to Fly personal development audio program; new, high-powered website at www.alvinday.com. From the little Alvin Day company, we became the Sales Empowerment Institute. The business outgrew our spare bedroom and Grace kicked me out of the house to lease real office space.

For a little boy who grew up without electricity, running water and inside toilets, I must confess that I truly enjoy flying first class. But after Grace and I experienced Virgin Atlantic first class from New York to London last year, anything less leaves me wanting. Lovely. lavish. Luxurious. Oh, my goodness. It’s something you just have to do.

And talking about class and glamour…in 2005 I consulted for nine months with NBC/Universal Studios in Hollywood, helping them to market movies. I’ve worked in Budapest, Paris, Barcelona, Guadalajara, Toronto, Los Angeles and New York. And imagine flying to the beaches of Trinidad, Puerto Rico and Jamaica to go to work...paid to be in Paradise. In Kingston – Jamaica where I was born, I’m on the radio five days a week with a sponsored inspirational message called “The Journey to Greatness.”

My first book took almost two years to write a couple years ago, but I wrote my second book last year in just two months. This new book, “Persuasion Power,” is better than the first. The list goes on...my business partner, Kempton Griffiths and I rose to the top executive club—The Circle of Champions—in a fabulous Network Marketing business that helps us make money as we sleep.

So, given all the great things accomplished last year, please tell me why I should feel pangs of guilt or tinges of inadequacy about what DIDN’T go so well? It doesn’t seem to make sense, given all that was achieved. But isn’t it true that we are often our own worst critics? Don’t you sometimes beat up on yourself when you shouldn’t?

Ask me: “So what was so bad about last year?” and I could bend your ears back. Easy for you to say: “Those things don’t matter, given all the good stuff that happened.” But it’s harder for me. I mean to say, I had some real issues last year. Just imagine, one of my best clients asked me to send in a consulting proposal for a “nice piece of work.” I got so busy and topsy-turvy in my priorities that I submitted the proposal one day late. As a result, a competitor got the job. One lousy, rotten day late. Miserable! And it was my own fault.

Consider “Persuasion Power,” that second book I wrote in such a short time. That was almost three months ago and I still haven’t completed the final editing and put the thing into production. A marketplace explosion – still waiting to happen. I’ve been too busy; but come on! This is important. I should have dropped everything else and gotten it done right away. I’m ashamed to admit that my launch date is the end of January...2006 for heaven’s sake!

And last year, I hardly exercised at all, even though, the year before that, I was going three to four miles per day all year, almost everyday I was at home. Lots of good excuses, but bottom line, sheer laziness.

Are you a little bit like me when you look back at the past? So many things went so well. You got raises and praises. You were healthy and strong, or at least, that sickness you had, it didn’t kill you. You made it. But in spite of all that, if someone asked you how last year turned out, the best you could muster would be: “It was fine” or, like my fellow Jamaicans have a habit of saying, “Not too bad.”

This tendency to down-play our accomplishments and focus on what went wrong is a malady that often afflicts people who are highly driven go-getters. Many of us suffer from a dysfunctional appetite for over-achievement. We are often very unrealistic about what we can get done in a 24 hour period. Do you ever feel this way? “Doggone it, I love to sleep, but it takes too many hours. There’s so much I want to do.”

Where did we get this warped tendency? Perhaps it began when we were children in school. At the end of the year, if you received four As and three Cs, where did your teachers and parents focus more of their discussion time? On the four As or the three Cs? On the Cs of course.

“The As are fine. Congratulations on a great job. But now, let’s spend some time talking about how you can improve those C grades. After all, you are not good enough until you can be perfect in every subject, you know. Besides, when all seven grades are A, that will make me feel like a great teacher/parent.”

What would become of our children if we spent more time lavishing praise and support on the things they naturally do well, instead of focusing on areas where they struggle?

So where did we get this warped tendency again? Perhaps it is still being perpetrated in our adult lives. Have you ever had a job where you got annual performance reviews? Was most time spent talking about your strengths or the areas that needed improvement? Get the picture?

It is no wonder so many of us are burdened by feelings of guilt and inadequacy. Shame on us for being imperfect in a world that seems to demand perfection. And now we’ve become the perpetrators ourselves, so WE demand perfection of ourselves and others.

Please don’t get me wrong. The passion for over-achievement can make us a bit crazy and it sometimes distorts our judgment. But this is not an argument for complacency or mediocrity. No way!

I would rather fall into bed at nights, extremely tired and worn out, than to feel like I was lazy—too relaxed and casual about my work during the day. If I had to err in being either too easygoing and not ambitious, or too driven and results oriented, I would much prefer the latter.

Clearly, neither extreme is good. What we need is a balanced perspective to avoid becoming immobilized with feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness.

So, here’s the plan. I have decided to accept that 2005 was a fabulous year, and that this year is going to be even better. Yes; I AM going to continue identifying the things that needed improvement in last year and develop a plan to improve them. However, I refuse to entertain any bad feelings as a result. In fact, I accept the idea that certain things had to go wrong in order to make space for the ones that went right. For example, if I had “just dropped everything” to get “Persuasion Power” published, one accomplishment or another would have had to be sacrificed. Now that 2005 is in the past, whatever happened

happened, and that’s that.

Can you adopt that approach as needed? Count your blessings and stop beating up yourself. You are alive! You have a fresh chance to shape the new year according to your liking. Grab it with gusto and refuse to sacrifice one ounce of energy, creativity or peace of mind, for something that didn’t go right last year. Make this a great year. That’s what I now plan to do. How about you?

With this new understanding, I can now repeat my starting sentiment with far more depth of meaning: “Happy New Year!”

Take it from me: this attitude will give you altitude.

Alvin